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The BSD Daemon

The little red fellow that graces many of these pages is
the BSD Daemon. In the context of UNIXÂ® systems, daemons
are process that run in the background attending to various
tasks without human intervention. In the general sense,
daemon is an older form of the word demon. In the Unix
System Administration Handbook, Evi Nemeth has this to
say about daemons:

"Many people equate the word ``daemon'' with the
word ``demon,'' implying some kind of Satanic connection
between UNIX and the underworld. This is an egregious
misunderstanding. ``Daemon'' is actually a much older form
of ``demon''; daemons have no particular bias towards good
or evil, but rather serve to help define a person's
character or personality. The ancient Greeks' concept of a
``personal daemon'' was similar to the modern concept of a
``guardian angel'' --- ``eudaemonia'' is the state of being
helped or protected by a kindly spirit. As a rule, UNIX
systems seem to be infested with both daemons and demons."
(p403)

The earliest (and most popular) renditions of the BSD Daemon were
created by John Lasseter. More recent FreeBSD-specific
renditions have done by
Tatsumi Hosokawa, but the basic inspiration was definitely John's.
The copyright holder and creator of the daemon image is
Marshall Kirk McKusick.
A short pictorial
history is also available. There is a gallery of FreeBSD related
publications that use
variations of the daemon graphic.